"FBI sources told FOX59 state and federal and state investigators were serving warrants at Fogle's Zionsville home in connection with a child-pornography investigation."
Fox59 notes that that earlier this year, the director of Fogle's charitable foundation, the Jared Foundation, was arrested in a child-pornography case.
The foundation cut ties with the director, Russell Taylor, after his arrest.
Fogle rose to fame 15 years ago after losing more than 200 pounds by eating Subway sandwiches.
The restaurant chain hired him to be an official spokesman, and today he has a net worth of $15 million, according to the New York Daily News.
Subway released the following statement: “We are shocked about the news and believe it is related to a prior investigation of a former Jared Foundation employee. We are very concerned and will be monitoring the situation closely. We don’t have any more details at this point.”
Fogle's attorney, Ron Elberger, told ABC News, "Jared has been cooperating, and continues to cooperate, with law enforcement in their investigation of unspecified charges, and looks forward to its conclusion."
A Federal Bureau of Investigation search warrant has provided a rare glimpse into the increasingly complex efforts of U.S. law enforcement to combat child pornography online, leading to the seizure this year of a website with nearly 215,000 users.
The search warrant, unsealed on Monday in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, showed that the FBI seized the website's North Carolina server on Feb. 20 but allowed it to remain operating for about two weeks while authorities investigated its users.
According the search warrant describing the website's activities, it operated on a network designed to facilitate anonymous communication over the Internet that protected users' privacy.
The website, which began operating around August 2014, contained thousands of postings and messages featuring child pornography images and had 214,898 members, the warrant said.
Before shutting down "Website A," as court documents call it, on March 4, the FBI obtained a search warrant from a judge in Virginia that authorized it to use a technique that would cause a computer to send it data anytime a user logged on.
The FBI cited the data obtained during the probe of Website A in seeking a search warrant in June for a Brooklyn apartment where a man resided with the same IP address as one of the website's users.
The Brooklyn man has not been charged. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the agency does not discuss "ongoing investigations."
The probe follows an earlier FBI investigation based out of Nebraska that resulted in the seizure of three child pornography online websites in 2012, two of which listed 5,600 and 8,100 members, respectively.
Those websites, according to court documents, operated on the Tor network, which allows users to communicate anonymously.
The Tor service has enabled dissidents living under repressive regimes a means of safely communicating but has also made it easier for criminals to avoid detection.
Called "Operation Torpedo," the Nebraska investigation resulted in charges against 28 people including the websites' administrator, Aaron McGrath, who was sentenced in 2014 to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)
Federal authorities have seized electronics, paper documents and other items from the Indiana home of Subway spokesman Jared Fogle.
Fogle, 37, was photographed by The Indianapolis Star leaving an evidence truck during the hours-long investigation Tuesday.
He later left his home in a black Lexus with his lawyer, Ron Elberger, according to the Star's report.
"Jared has been cooperating, and continues to cooperate, with law enforcement in their investigation of unspecified charges, and looks forward to its conclusion," Elberger said in a statement.
Subway said in a statement that the raid could be related to an investigation of an ex-employee of the Jared Foundation, which Fogle started to help children develop better eating and exercise habits.
“We are shocked about the news and believe it is related to a prior investigation of a former Jared Foundation employee," the company said. "We are very concerned and will be monitoring the situation closely. We don’t have any more details at this point.”
Russell Taylor, the executive director of Fogle Foundation, was arrested two months ago in Indianapolis on federal child pornography charges following an April 29 FBI raid of his home.
More than 400 videos of child pornography were found in his possession, according to court documents reviewed by the Star.
Taylor was charged with seven counts of production of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography, according to the Star. He reportedly attempted suicide in jail shortly after his arrest and was placed on life support.
Fogle's foundation cut ties with Taylor after his arrest.
Fogle rose to fame 15 years ago after losing more than 200 pounds by eating Subway sandwiches.
The restaurant chain hired him to be an official spokesman, and today he has a net worth of $15 million, according to the New York Daily News.
The last four times porn star James Deen tried to cast a black male performer in a scene for his website, the female star or her agent refused.
In one case, an agent using the shorthand for “interracial” texted him to say that his client “does not do IR yet.”
In another, Deen asked up front via text message whether a female performer had “issues with black dudes.” She wrote back, “Personally no. Sexually, I’d rather not at this time lol.”
He responded: “Racist,” then added, “I will find someone else for this scene.” She tried to save face, writing, “I’m only 5 months in. Havnt done IR yet.”
In the porn business, working with black male actors is often viewed as the final, most extreme frontier in a white starlet’s career.
Popular industry wisdom has it that a female performer must slowly expand the range of things that she does on camera — going from standard “boy-girl” scenes to anal sex to gang bangs, for example — in order to build intrigue and keep her star from burning out too quickly.
This hierarchy usually proceeds according to which sex acts are considered most taboo and, sometimes, most physically demanding for the female performer. But “interracial” porn, which is frequently seen as the ultimate feat for an actress, is held out as more extreme not because of which body part goes where but because the adult industry reflects the old attitude society still holds on to — that the color of a sexual partner’s skin can by itself make the act forbidden.
“It’s gross and racist, and I’m just sick of it,” says Deen. “It’s rampant s--- that’s making it really difficult to actually get any sort of interesting scenes or to actually have a diverse group of performers, because what ends up inevitably happening is every scene just turns into a bunch of white people, and it’s getting really frustrating.”
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The term “interracial” porn is misleading — hence the scare quotes — because it generally isn’t applied to scenes between a white woman and, say, an Asian man. “It simply means ‘a black person,’” says Isiah Maxwell, an African-American performer.
And, Maxwell says, it can simply mean a black man, regardless of the woman’s race. “It don’t make any sense when a mixed girl tells me she don’t want to do IR,” says Maxwell. “I’m like, you’re already IR! What are you talking about?”
Maxwell says he has seen this mentality impact his career. “[Producers will] tell me that they would love to put me in more scenes, but they can’t find performers that will work with me,” he says. “The concept is mind-blowing if you think about it.”
Porn performer Mickey Mod has had similar experiences. He’s African-American, but has “a little bit of a lighter complexion,” as he puts it, so sometimes people assume from photographs that he’s Latino.
A few times, he has shown up on set, only to have his female costar inquire about his ethnicity and react negatively when he answers. “I’ve had the scene stopped because the person was like, ‘Well, I don’t do interracial yet’ or ‘I’m saving that for later,’” he said. “That’s happened a couple times where I’m booked for a scene and the scene is changed.”
Even porn’s pay scale has racist implications. A standard “boy-girl” scene generally earns a female star around $1,000, according to Mark Spiegler, one of the industry’s top talent agents. After that, pay often increases with the degree of difficulty or taboo of the scene. Anal sex comes with a price tag of roughly $1,200 and up, and double penetration runs around $1,400, says Spiegler. Spiegler’s agency does not charge extra for “interracial,” but others do.
Deen recently had an actress request an extra $500 to perform with a black man. In the case of contracts with big companies, female stars can get $2,000-plus for their first “IR” scene, according to one black performer who asked to remain anonymous so as to not associate that rate with the agency that employs him.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
In other words, in monetary terms, these agents, performers, and producers are saying that simply having sex with a black man is about 43% more difficult — or more taboo, or both — for the actress in the scene than it is for her to have two penises inside her at the same time.
Some in the industry write this off as additional compensation for female performers to work with men with much larger penises.
Non-“interracial” porn has genres that highlight significantly endowed men — even by the adult industry’s standards — having sex with petite women too, though. (Although when “IR” porn highlights such size differentials, it’s often in racialized scenes calling back to the oldest and crudest of stereotypes about black men.)
And, Deen points out, most men in the industry are well hung, regardless of their race. “There are plenty of white guys in the industry whose dicks are just as big or bigger than some of the black performers,” he says. Besides, these calls about “IR” are made without any attention to individual penis size. “It’s just a skin-color rate,” says Deen.
Black performers, on the other hand, do not typically get extra compensation for “interracial” scenes. “It doesn’t bother me that the girls are getting paid more for interracial scenes. It bothers me that the guys aren’t getting paid more as well,” says Maxwell. It is some small comfort that they command rates similar to those paid to their white male colleagues, at least according to estimates by the black male performers with whom Vocativ spoke.
The same cannot be said for African-American women, who reportedly earn half to three-quarters of what white women make in porn. “As a black female performer, often times you have to enter into the industry doing everything — doing anal, doing boy-girl, doing all this stuff,” says Nikki Darling, an African-American performer.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The reason for that, she says, is that agents assume that black women will have shorter careers anyway, so there’s no point in staging a gradual escalation of taboos. “In some ways in mainstream porn there’s this idea that black women aren’t as marketable, that we’re not as innocent as, say, a blonde white girl,” she says.
Porn might not seem a high-priority area for inclusion of African-Americans, but Mod argues that it’s important. “We’re at a time when everybody is very aware of how people of color are treated in this country — when it comes to shootings and violence — and I think a large part of that is the way we represent people of color as they are in their everyday life,” he says. “I think positive perceptions of sexuality is a big part of that.”
When scenes do feature black men, it’s often in highly stereotyped premises and plots. “You show up [on set] and they’re like, ‘Here’s the situation: She’s at home. She just got home from school, and you break into the house,’” Mod says. “I don’t know a performer who [hasn’t gotten to set] and then finds out, oh, OK, I’m playing a drug dealer today — or, oh, OK, I’m this really inappropriate stereotype.”
Once, while Mod was acting in a cuckolding scene featuring a white couple, the director instructed the performer playing to the husband to exclaim, “No, I don’t want you to have his black babies!” Mod politely suggested a slight revision: “I don’t want you to have his babies!”
In that case, the director agreed, but often enough Mod has been the one to compromise. “There are times where I’m like, ‘All right, this is what I’ve chosen to do,’” he says. “And maybe this company doesn’t do it in such a way that I feel horrible about myself — but at the same time, I understand that it is being marketed toward this certain demographic.”
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.That demographic sometimes includes, as Maxwell puts it, “people that are silently racist and secretly watch it.” He believes “it turns them on; the idea of their race against a race they find themselves superior to.”
There are some female stars who avoid “IR” for exactly this reason. “I know some performers who don’t do interracial scenes because of the way that scenes are portrayed and will only do certain scenes with certain companies because they don’t want to reinforce stereotypes that that they think are damaging,” says Mod.
Not all pornography featuring black performers traffics in stereotypes. There has been a movement of black female directors who “re-appropriate their images for their own profit and politics,” as academic Mireille Miller-Young put it in “The Feminist Porn Book.” Then there are people like Deen, who cast — or at least try to — with a blind eye to ethnicity.
(Sometimes, though, the end product is out of their hands. The director of one of Mod’s films wanted to sell it in nonracialized terms, but the production company insisted on putting “black” in the title.)
Darling says she has encountered much less racism and stereotyping when she has worked on productions outside of the mainstream porn industry, particularly in BDSM.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Porn that is marketed as “IR,” though, tends to skew toward troubling stereotypes. But mainstream porn traffics in all sorts of troubling stereotypes, not just racist ones. Disturbing as these portrayals may be, they tend to be an honest reflection of our cultural baggage. “Everything is put on the performers to be held morally responsible — thing is, porn is a fast-food model. We wouldn’t make the things if people weren’t buying the things,” Mod says. “When people want highly problematic racialized content, people make those scenes — and they do really well.”
Success in the porn industry tends to require a certain level of respect for fantasy, even when it ventures into the politically incorrect. In this case, though, the hiring and payment practices for black performers ventures well beyond the world of just make-believe.
As Mod sees it, some self-reflection is needed on the part of female performers and, more so, their agents. “What is it about this taboo that still needs to exist in 2015?” he asks. “What is it about the way we stigmatize people of color as being less-than, that [a white performer] needs to get paid more-than for a scene?”
Security researchers have warned about a malicious porn app called Adult Player, which secretly takes photos of the person using it and then blackmails them with it.
The Android app is actually a virus, known as "ransomware," which disables your computer or phone, and demands payment in exchange for restoring it.
In other words, ransomware is an extortion racket by cyber criminals. American security firm Zscaler found that "Adult Player" lures victims by promising pornographic video. When the victim starts using it, the app silently takes a compromising photo of the victim, which is then displayed on the screen, along with a ransom message. The app demands a ransom of $500 (£326) to be paid via PayPal.
Once the app has taken its photo of the user, it sends their mobile device and operating system information to a remote server, where a personalized ransom note is created. It looks something like this:
The red warning note claims “Your device has been blocked for safety reasons listed below. All your files are encrypted. You are accused of viewing/storage and/or dissemination of banned pornography (child pornography/zoophilia/rape etc.)”
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.It then asks for “fine” to be paid. The ransom screen is designed to stay persistent even if you reboot your phone. It does not allow you to operate your device and keeps the screen active with ransom message.
This type of ransomware, which locked a screen and demanded payment, was first seen in Russian speaking countries in 2009. Since then, it has exploded: According to a McAfee labs report from May 2015, the incidence of ransomware rose by 165pc in the first quarter of 2015. Although the report says this type of crime was more prevalent in laptops, rather than phones, this seems to be changing.
A recent example of that change was the report that up to 225,000 Apple accounts had been hacked from Apple phones.
Security firm Zscaler says there is a way to get rid of the malicious software without paying up. The phone should be booted up in safe mode, where — once in device administrator mode — the app can be selected and disabled.
To avoid becoming a victim of such ransomware, you can stay safe by downloading apps only from trusted app stores, like Google Play. This can be enforced by unchecking the option of "Unknown Sources" under the "Security" settings of your device.
Melissa Murphy used to eat, sleep, and breathe porn. But she didn't watch it.
"I build relationships in the makeup chair," Murphy tells me as she drags a red lip pencil over an adult actress's lip.
"We talk about our love lives, our problems. I can’t go watch you have sex after this," Murphy says, cupping the woman's chin in her hands. "To me, you’re my sweet little girl who I make over into a pinup doll."
For eight years, the folks in the porn industry were Murphy's social circle. Adult actresses became her vacation buddies and closest confidants. But something happened in 2013 that threatened to unravel these relationships and destroy her career in the process.
You may remember this Business Insider article written about Murphy's Instagram account, an account that surfaced on Reddit and was covered by every major news site from Gawker to The New York Post's Page Six.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Collectively, the internet applauded Murphy's artistry, often commenting on the staggering difference between before and after shots. The story was a favorite for readers, and its popularity inspired a follow-up I wrote this past summer: "Makeup artist posts shocking before-and-after photos of the porn stars she styles."
And it only continues to make the rounds from there. Last week, BroBible, The Daily Mail, and The Mirror resurrected the story with galleries of their own.
A few months after the Business Insider article went live, I reached out to Murphy, wanting to see how internet-fame was treating her. Had business taken off? Were porn stars clamoring to be made over by her?
Turns out, Murphy's ascent into virality was anything but uplifting. Adult actresses accused Murphy of selling the story to press, and photographers no longer welcomed her on set.
In one fell swoop, she lost her friends, career, and a bit of her sanity.
I recently spent the day with Murphy on set of an erotic film shoot in Calabasas, California, to find out why going viral was the worst thing to ever happen to her — and why it was totally worth it.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
'Who doesn't want to become an overnight success?'
As a makeup artist in the adult film industry, Murphy has transformed hundreds of men and women into sex gods and bombshells. Much like those in Hollywood, makeup artists in porn create looks that hide a performer's flaws, highlight assets, and match the mood of the movie.
She describes her work as "liquid confidence." We prefer cosmetic sorcery.
Still, Murphy never planned to work in porn. Thirteen years ago, she sold telecommunication services to Fortune 500 companies. After being laid off, Murphy took a side-gig at a cosmetics counter in a Los Angeles mall, though she had no formal training.
A friend asked her to dog-sit for her boss, a pornography director. As the guy was paying her, Murphy told him he should hire her as a makeup artist. Her first gig paid out $125. She stayed long after she was needed, so that she could watch the veteran-artists work.
There are only a handful of makeup artists in the adult film industry, and fewer good ones, a robed actress tells me on set. The best photographers only hire the best makeup artists. Because Murphy excelled at makeup and hair, which is a rarity, she continued to book job after job.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
In order to drum up more business, Murphy started staging behind-the-scenes photo shoots with the actresses and sharing the results to Instagram. Her account only served to showcase her talent and make herself even more visible to photographers. And it worked. That year, she would have to schedule days off.
Most of the actresses loved Murphy's social media shtick. She often photographed them in their street clothes, rather than skimpy lingerie, and in natural lighting. Many would use the after-photos as their profile pictures on social media. Others retweeted the posts with praise.
"My first [before-and-after] subject was Kristina Rose, a down-to-earth girl who said something like, 'I don’t give a f---' when I asked," Murphy remembers. "She even had bad skin at the time."
A photo posted by Melissa Murphy (@xmelissamakeupx) on
Murphy guesses that fewer than a dozen women rejected her when she asked to share their bare faces on Instagram. She never posted without permission.
Then Reddit found her.
On March 9, 2013, user trollboll lifted 93 photos from Murphy's Instagram and posted them to imgur, a community blog where people share interesting and weird internet content.
Some of the transformations were rather shocking. Every zit, rogue hair, and patch of oily skin went exposed. But with Murphy's makeup magic, the actresses looked practically Photoshopped. The photos racked up millions of views and attention from media outlets around the world.
"You've seen them without their clothes," The Huffington Post's Hilary Hanson wrote. "Now see them without makeup."
"These incredible transformations prove that just about anybody can 'look like a porn star,'" BuzzFeed's Ryan Broderick said.
Many blogs published galleries embedding Murphy's photos without asking her. Given the gray nature of fair use laws, media may use public Instagram user's photos as long as the images are embedded. This feature gives proper attribution by showing the username and linking back to the original content, according to Instagram's embedding terms of use.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
At the time, Murphy lay in bed devouring link and after link. "My initial reaction to my account going viral was a mix of shock and excitement," Murphy says. "Who doesn't want to become an overnight success?"
Her enthusiasm lasted 24 hours.
The dark side of going viral
Some friends in porn texted her, sending congratulations. Some friends outside of porn texted her, panicked. Murphy had posted pictures of makeovers she'd done for "normals," including her sister on her wedding day, and they were being identified as porn stars in some slideshows.
And others, well ... others lost it.
A small, but vocal, handful of adult actresses attacked Murphy on social media for betraying them. They accused her of selling the images to the press, and doing so without their permissions. According to their smears on social media, Murphy exposed them in their most vulnerable moments, saying Murphy was the only one with something to gain by showing the world the actresses' bare faces. The hashtag #MakeupArtistNoList attempted to blacklist Murphy from the industry.
"Can't trust b-----s who secretly work for tabloids," one porn star said on Twitter.
"You hang with snakes you get bit," another tweeted. "I think next time @xmelissamakeupx should get [photo release forms] from her models before she puts them up on NY Post page six....I mean Instagram."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Murphy swears that to this day, she's never reached out to a press outlet for coverage, nor has she received a dime for the photos.
While manypornstars came to Murphy's defense, the damage was already done.
Actresses who had been her closest confidants threatened legal action and bullied her in the comments section of her Instagram posts. Photographers who once hired Murphy stopped calling, not wanting trouble between her and the actresses on set. In such a competitive industry, no one can afford to be too close to the source of the drama.
"It broke my heart," Murphy says. "It felt like a popularity contest that I had lost."
She deleted social media apps from her phone. She sought legal advice, and followed instructions not to respond to the actresses. When a job opportunity cropped up in India, Murphy took it.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Two and half years have passed since internet-fame dug its claws in Murphy, and much has changed. The actresses moved on, and one of the industry's most prolific female photographers, Holly Randall, took a chance on Murphy. Randall continues to be Murphy's primary source of gigs, hiring her for nude photography shoots for Playboy and other reputable adult brands.
At last, she's working five days a week again. While Murphy hopes to transition from the adult industry to mainstream film — and has already added clients from Hollywood and the music world to her Rolodex — she admits that feeling busy feels darn good.
Back to work, and back to Instagram
On a cloudless morning in the San Fernando Valley, where an estimated 90% of American sex films are made, I visit Murphy to take in a day in her life. We find ourselves in a white stucco ranch house for a feature shoot for Twistys, an erotic film studio known for its glamorous, softer approach to X-rated content.
A 5-foot-3-inch woman in her late 20s lifts herself into the makeup chair, adjusts the white bathrobe around her, and introduces herself to me as Nicole Aniston. She's beautiful and approachable, with iridescent green eyes and long honey-colored tresses. Murphy sweeps her hair up with her fingertips and lets it spill over Aniston's back.
"I just want to bathe in it," Murphy coos, then asks Aniston in a near-whisper if she can take a "before" photo for Instagram. She's nervous Aniston will reject her, knowing very well that the unfiltered, unflattering photo could appear on the front page of Gawker or The Daily Mail tomorrow.
Having been through the drill a handful of times before, Aniston agrees as she turns to face Murphy and pouts for the iPhone directed at her.
From the roots of Murphy's hair to the tips of her sneakers, the tension moves through her body, and with a press of the iPhone's camera button, a sense of relief takes its place.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
In the coming days, Murphy will pick "before" and "after" photos of Aniston, splice them side-by-side, and post to Instagram. She tempts fate again and again.
Later I want to know if Murphy thinks she's asking for trouble.
"It isn't about showing my work anymore," Murphy says. With rouge-stained hands, she pulls up Instagram on her phone and scrolls through the comment threads. Countless followers have left messages of not only admiration, but of gratitude.
"I see how flawless the women in magazines and on TV are, and I constantly have to fight the thought that I'll never be able to compete," one aspiring actress writes. "We can all be stars with help from artists as talented as you."
"Thank you for promoting self-love!" another says.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Murphy thinks most people don't realize how many others wear makeup to feel better about themselves. They feel ashamed about their makeup use, and perceive it as a crutch for those who lack in natural beauty.
Seeing that even porn stars need concealer, lash extensions, bronzer, and more, Murphy's followers look at their own appearances in the mirror with a little more forgiveness.
"With makeup, we can enhance our looks and transform into anything we desire," Murphy says. "But at the end of the day, we are all the same.
Melissa Murphy used to eat, sleep, and breathe porn. But she didn't watch it.
"I build relationships in the makeup chair," Murphy tells me as she drags a red lip pencil over an adult actress's lip.
"We talk about our love lives, our problems. I can’t go watch you have sex after this," Murphy says, cupping the woman's chin in her hands. "To me, you’re my sweet little girl who I make over into a pinup doll."
For eight years, the folks in the porn industry were Murphy's social circle. Adult actresses became her vacation buddies and closest confidants. But something happened in 2013 that threatened to unravel these relationships and destroy her career in the process.
You may remember this Business Insider article written about Murphy's Instagram account, an account that surfaced on Reddit and was covered by every major news site from Gawker to The New York Post's Page Six.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Collectively, the internet applauded Murphy's artistry, often commenting on the staggering difference between before and after shots. The story was a favorite for readers, and its popularity inspired a follow-up I wrote this past summer: "Makeup artist posts shocking before-and-after photos of the porn stars she styles."
And it only continues to make the rounds from there. Last week, BroBible, The Daily Mail, and The Mirror resurrected the story with galleries of their own.
A few months after the Business Insider article went live, I reached out to Murphy, wanting to see how internet-fame was treating her. Had business taken off? Were porn stars clamoring to be made over by her?
Turns out, Murphy's ascent into virality was anything but uplifting. Adult actresses accused Murphy of selling the story to press, and photographers no longer welcomed her on set.
In one fell swoop, she lost her friends, career, and a bit of her sanity.
I recently spent the day with Murphy on set of an erotic film shoot in Calabasas, California, to find out why going viral was the worst thing to ever happen to her — and why it was totally worth it.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
'Who doesn't want to become an overnight success?'
As a makeup artist in the adult film industry, Murphy has transformed hundreds of men and women into sex gods and bombshells. Much like those in Hollywood, makeup artists in porn create looks that hide a performer's flaws, highlight assets, and match the mood of the movie.
She describes her work as "liquid confidence." We prefer cosmetic sorcery.
Still, Murphy never planned to work in porn. Thirteen years ago, she sold telecommunication services to Fortune 500 companies. After being laid off, Murphy took a side-gig at a cosmetics counter in a Los Angeles mall, though she had no formal training.
A friend asked her to dog-sit for her boss, a pornography director. As the guy was paying her, Murphy told him he should hire her as a makeup artist. Her first gig paid out $125. She stayed long after she was needed, so that she could watch the veteran-artists work.
There are only a handful of makeup artists in the adult film industry, and fewer good ones, a robed actress tells me on set. The best photographers only hire the best makeup artists. Because Murphy excelled at makeup and hair, which is a rarity, she continued to book job after job.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
In order to drum up more business, Murphy started staging behind-the-scenes photo shoots with the actresses and sharing the results to Instagram. Her account only served to showcase her talent and make herself even more visible to photographers. And it worked. That year, she would have to schedule days off.
Most of the actresses loved Murphy's social media shtick. She often photographed them in their street clothes, rather than skimpy lingerie, and in natural lighting. Many would use the after-photos as their profile pictures on social media. Others retweeted the posts with praise.
"My first [before-and-after] subject was Kristina Rose, a down-to-earth girl who said something like, 'I don’t give a f---' when I asked," Murphy remembers. "She even had bad skin at the time."
A photo posted by Melissa Murphy (@xmelissamakeupx) on
Murphy guesses that fewer than a dozen women rejected her when she asked to share their bare faces on Instagram. She never posted without permission.
Then Reddit found her.
On March 9, 2013, user trollboll lifted 93 photos from Murphy's Instagram and posted them to imgur, a community blog where people share interesting and weird internet content.
Some of the transformations were rather shocking. Every zit, rogue hair, and patch of oily skin went exposed. But with Murphy's makeup magic, the actresses looked practically Photoshopped. The photos racked up millions of views and attention from media outlets around the world.
"You've seen them without their clothes," The Huffington Post's Hilary Hanson wrote. "Now see them without makeup."
"These incredible transformations prove that just about anybody can 'look like a porn star,'" BuzzFeed's Ryan Broderick said.
Many blogs published galleries embedding Murphy's photos without asking her. Given the gray nature of fair use laws, media may use public Instagram user's photos as long as the images are embedded. This feature gives proper attribution by showing the username and linking back to the original content, according to Instagram's embedding terms of use.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
At the time, Murphy lay in bed devouring link and after link. "My initial reaction to my account going viral was a mix of shock and excitement," Murphy says. "Who doesn't want to become an overnight success?"
Her enthusiasm lasted 24 hours.
The dark side of going viral
Some friends in porn texted her, sending congratulations. Some friends outside of porn texted her, panicked. Murphy had posted pictures of makeovers she'd done for "normals," including her sister on her wedding day, and they were being identified as porn stars in some slideshows.
And others, well ... others lost it.
A small, but vocal, handful of adult actresses attacked Murphy on social media for betraying them. They accused her of selling the images to the press, and doing so without their permissions. According to their smears on social media, Murphy exposed them in their most vulnerable moments, saying Murphy was the only one with something to gain by showing the world the actresses' bare faces. The hashtag #MakeupArtistNoList attempted to blacklist Murphy from the industry.
"Can't trust b-----s who secretly work for tabloids," one porn star said on Twitter.
"You hang with snakes you get bit," another tweeted. "I think next time @xmelissamakeupx should get [photo release forms] from her models before she puts them up on NY Post page six....I mean Instagram."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Murphy swears that to this day, she's never reached out to a press outlet for coverage, nor has she received a dime for the photos.
While manypornstars came to Murphy's defense, the damage was already done.
Actresses who had been her closest confidants threatened legal action and bullied her in the comments section of her Instagram posts. Photographers who once hired Murphy stopped calling, not wanting trouble between her and the actresses on set. In such a competitive industry, no one can afford to be too close to the source of the drama.
"It broke my heart," Murphy says. "It felt like a popularity contest that I had lost."
She deleted social media apps from her phone. She sought legal advice, and followed instructions not to respond to the actresses. When a job opportunity cropped up in India, Murphy took it.
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Two and half years have passed since internet-fame dug its claws in Murphy, and much has changed. The actresses moved on, and one of the industry's most prolific female photographers, Holly Randall, took a chance on Murphy. Randall continues to be Murphy's primary source of gigs, hiring her for nude photography shoots for Playboy and other reputable adult brands.
At last, she's working five days a week again. While Murphy hopes to transition from the adult industry to mainstream film — and has already added clients from Hollywood and the music world to her Rolodex — she admits that feeling busy feels darn good.
Back to work, and back to Instagram
On a cloudless morning in the San Fernando Valley, where an estimated 90% of American sex films are made, I visit Murphy to take in a day in her life. We find ourselves in a white stucco ranch house for a feature shoot for Twistys, an erotic film studio known for its glamorous, softer approach to X-rated content.
A 5-foot-3-inch woman in her late 20s lifts herself into the makeup chair, adjusts the white bathrobe around her, and introduces herself to me as Nicole Aniston. She's beautiful and approachable, with iridescent green eyes and long honey-colored tresses. Murphy sweeps her hair up with her fingertips and lets it spill over Aniston's back.
"I just want to bathe in it," Murphy coos, then asks Aniston in a near-whisper if she can take a "before" photo for Instagram. She's nervous Aniston will reject her, knowing very well that the unfiltered, unflattering photo could appear on the front page of Gawker or The Daily Mail tomorrow.
Having been through the drill a handful of times before, Aniston agrees as she turns to face Murphy and pouts for the iPhone directed at her.
From the roots of Murphy's hair to the tips of her sneakers, the tension moves through her body, and with a press of the iPhone's camera button, a sense of relief takes its place.
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In the coming days, Murphy will pick "before" and "after" photos of Aniston, splice them side-by-side, and post to Instagram. She tempts fate again and again.
Later I want to know if Murphy thinks she's asking for trouble.
"It isn't about showing my work anymore," Murphy says. With rouge-stained hands, she pulls up Instagram on her phone and scrolls through the comment threads. Countless followers have left messages of not only admiration, but of gratitude.
"I see how flawless the women in magazines and on TV are, and I constantly have to fight the thought that I'll never be able to compete," one aspiring actress writes. "We can all be stars with help from artists as talented as you."
"Thank you for promoting self-love!" another says.
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Murphy thinks most people don't realize how many others wear makeup to feel better about themselves. They feel ashamed about their makeup use, and perceive it as a crutch for those who lack in natural beauty.
Seeing that even porn stars need concealer, lash extensions, bronzer, and more, Murphy's followers look at their own appearances in the mirror with a little more forgiveness.
"With makeup, we can enhance our looks and transform into anything we desire," Murphy says. "But at the end of the day, we are all the same.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.PornHub aspires to be not just another porn site, but a fountain of data insights about the porn-viewing habits of our society. The website’s “Insights” section has shone light on many of our kinks by breaking the data down by region, gender, or other markers.
And now PornHub has crunched the data on iOS versus Android users, and unearthed the various ways their porn preferences differ. Mobile now represents a full 60% of Pornhub traffic, and the results of their study are more divided than you might expect between the two operating systems.
Here are the main differences between Apple and Google fans’ porn taste.
iOS:
iOS users, by and large, tend toward the more "vanilla" fetishes, if you will. The two top categories they enjoy much more than Android users are mom-aged ladies (+134%), which in porn-speak is basically anyone over 25, and point-of-view footage (+131%). They enjoy bondage 105% more than Android users and appreciate an “amateur” performance (+92%). They also go for the age-old "babysitter" (+74%), "lesbian" (+49%), and "threesome" (+38%) fantasies.
Android:
If you were totally bored by iOS, Android is definitely the operating system for you. Android users like “big beautiful women” 135% more and transgender women 118% more — the two categories most differentiated from iOS. Android users seem more racially inclusive, and watch both African-American (+114%) and interracial (+44%) videos more frequently. And they are definitely more into cartoons (+91%) and Japanese cartoon erotica (+97%).
An aside:
The more "simple" nature of iOS porn viewing is backed up by their keyword searches. iOS users utilize about 1-2 keywords while Android users employ 3-4. Perhaps Android fetishes are just a bit more complicated.
If you are interested in learning the top searches for each operating system, or which stars they search for more (iOS users love Kim Kardashian), head over to the full PornHub findings.
The new YouTube Red subscription service, where you pay $9.99-plus a month for original ad-free streaming videos, has a porn problem — namely, its name is definitely evocative of well-known porn site RedTube.
So much so that even Mark Mahaney, considered the top Internet analyst, titled a note to investors about the new service with a joke about it: "YouTube Red (No, Not Red Tube)."
(For the record, Mahaney thinks it's a good thing, but unlikely to make a lot of money in the short term.)
The similarities in the names (and in their respective URLs) could cause a lot of consumer confusion and awkward web surfing experiences.
Mahaney wasn't the only one who noticed the similarity:
The name "RedTube" itself is already uncomfortably close to "YouTube." The addition of "Red" definitely brings the association home.
But, so far, YouTube's parent company Google has not made any kind of public action against RedTube for the name. And while RedTube got to the whole "Red" aesthetic first, it was founded in 2007 — two years after YouTube.
Maybe YouTube's expansion into Red territory will be the impetus for the search advertising giant to start a legal, trademark battle.
Asked about the similar sounding names, a YouTube spokesperson said: "When we said Red would enhance the performance of YouTube, that's not exactly what we had in mind."
She chronicles their remarkable transformations on Instagram, where she has over 109,000 followers.
Murphy describes her work as "liquid confidence." We prefer "cosmetic sorcery."
Over the summer, we spent the day with Murphy on set of a porn shoot in Calabasas, California, to see what it takes to get these actresses camera-ready and feeling their best.
On a cloudless morning in Porn Valley, a sun-drenched region of southern California where an estimated 90% of American sex films are made, workers file into a white stucco ranch house on a hill.
She chronicles their remarkable transformations on Instagram, where she has over 109,000 followers.
Murphy describes her work as "liquid confidence." We prefer "cosmetic sorcery."
Over the summer, we spent the day with Murphy on set of a porn shoot in Calabasas, California, to see what it takes to get these actresses camera-ready and feeling their best.
On a cloudless morning in Porn Valley, a sun-drenched region of southern California where an estimated 90% of American sex films are made, workers file into a white stucco ranch house on a hill.
Earlier this week the EU ruled that all internet service providers (ISPs) must treat online traffic "without discrimination"– effectively ending porn filters established by David Cameron.
Cameron told the House of Commons yesterday that the news on the net neutrality laws forced him to splutter out his cornflakes when he read it in the Daily Mail over breakfast that morning.
According to Wired, Cameron said he has secured an "opt-out agreement" with the EU so that the "family-friendly filters" can continue for now. It's currently unclear when the new EU laws will come into effect.
Rebuking the EU rules, he went on to tell MPs that it's "vitally important that we enable parents to have that protection for their children.
"I can tell the House that we will legislate to put our agreement with internet companies into the law of the land so that our children will be protected."
To begin with, the public Wi-Fi networks had filters imposed on them but BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media have subsequently started to introduce the filters on home broadband connections. Customers that wants to opt-out of these porn filters can do so but only by contacting their service provider.
Business Insider was unable to reach the No.10 press office for comment.
A Conservative Peer told the House of Lords, during a debate this afternoon, that looking at pornography can shrink the brain.
Speaking in his capacity as "a doctor," Lord McColl cited a study by the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the Psychiatric University Hospital Charité at St Hedwig Hospital to claim that "constant pornography consumption can reduce the size of parts of the brain."
It appears that Lord McColl may have not understood the study correctly, as one of its authors told the Telegraph last year that “it's not clear, for example, whether watching porn leads to brain changes or whether people born with certain brain types watch more porn.”
This means that it's just as likely for people with a smaller striatum, the part of the brain that allegedly shrinks, to be just as attracted to pornography as it is for pornography to shape their brains.
Watch the video below:
Lord McColl was speaking in a debate led by the Bishop of Chester on the impact of pornography on society.
The Bishop has long held concerns about pornography and has previously told the House of Lords that he dislikes all activities that "separate human sexual attraction from its proper basis in responsible human relationships." The debate is being held because the Bishop's chosen subject was drawn in a ballot.
The Bishop opened the debate by expressing his distaste for "ugly, squalid, dirty sex."
However, not all members of the House of Lords agree with the Bishop of Chester's and Lord McColl's views on pornography.
Baroness Murphy, who told the House she was approaching the topic from the point of view of an academic psychiatrist, said the debate made her feel "mischievous."
She urged her fellow Peers to not "leap to conclusions" about scientific research and asked for forgiveness before reminding then that "pornography is there to aid masturbation."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Several months ago I was in a cab rushing to meet a friend at a new restaurant in downtown Manhattan.
I had left my phone at home, and while I knew the name of the place, I just couldn’t remember the exact cross streets.
So I asked the driver if I could borrow his phone to look up the address. He kindly obliged and handed me his Samsung device.
Now, to be honest, I’m not exactly Android savvy. So instead of opening the maps app (because I couldn’t find it), I opened his internet browsing app and much to my surprise I was looking at a very, um, "intimate" scene in an adult video that just so happened to be set in what appeared to be a cab.
I’m no prude, but I dropped the phone and had him drop me off anywhere on Houston Street.
I don't know if he knew that I knew, but the moment was awkward.
Are people just strolling/driving around this city watching porn?
Yes, according to a recent report from the digital market research firm Juniper.
Online porn consumption in general is going up. Increasingly, viewers' platform of choice is mobile.
On average, each smartphone owner will watch 348 porn videos this year (both on mobile and desktop), according to the research. And more than half (51%) of adult video views will be on mobile this year, which is up from 48% last year, according to Juniper.
This isn't surprising considering that the same trend is happening for video streaming in general. It makes sense that as our mobile devices become better connected, people will consume more than just YouTube videos.
But is instant access to porn wherever and whenever people want a good thing? Who benefits? Does it really matter?
The latest episode of "Codebreaker," our new podcast produced with Marketplace, asks "is porn evil?" After my experience in the cab, I wouldn't say yes, but it is changing social norms far quicker than I thought. But decide for yourself by listening here, or subscribing on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.
In this excerpt, Cadie Thompson tells host Ben Johnson just how much of the internet is porn:
Pornhub knows more than anyone wants to admit, which is why it's both fascinating and unsettling to look at Pornhub Insights. In the latest edition, compiled for Tech Insider, the video giant revealed when Americans look at porn.
It turns out, porn prime time is from 10 p.m. to midnight — notably later than the TV prime time of 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Pornhub traffic plunges in the early morning, rises above average during working hours, dips at dinnertime, and then rises again.
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Pornhub also broke out trends by day of week.
You'll note that people look up porn around 15% less on Friday and Saturday night compared to the rest of the week. Way to be social, America! But they look up porn around 10% more than average at 3 in the morning on those nights.
Also you'll see that people sleep in on Sunday, looking up porn 25% less at 6 a.m. and 10% more at 11 a.m..
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
We've also got men versus women. It turns out men are more active in the morning, women at night. Who knew?
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And finally, millennials. People ages 18–35 are more active late at night than everyone else.
This past Saturday, porn actress Stoya took to Twitter to accuse her ex-boyfriend James Deen of raping her.
Known as the porn industry’s “boy next door,” Deen denied the allegations on social media. Four hours later, another woman accused Deen of assaulting her in an essay for The Daily Beast.
And now Twitter is responding with the hashtag #solidaritywithstoya as people tweet their support for the adult film actress.
It all started with one tweet from Stoya [WARNING: The follow tweets may be graphic for some readers]:
That thing where you log in to the internet for a second and see people idolizing the guy who raped you as a feminist. That thing sucks.
“That thing where you log in to the internet for a second and see people idolizing the guy who raped you as a feminist,” she tweeted to her followers on Saturday. “That thing sucks.”
She followed up with another graphic tweet alleging that Deen held her down while she “said no, stop, [and] used [her] safe word.”
“I want to assure my friends, fans and colleagues that these allegations are both false and defamatory,” Deen tweeted. “I respect women and I know and respect limits both professionally and privately.”
After Deen’s denial on Instagram, another former adult performer named Tori Lux accused Deen of assaulting her as well. She claims the assault took place after a porn shoot in 2011 in an essay published by The Daily Beast.
He proceeded to straddle my chest, pinning down my arms with his knees. Then, he raised his hand high above his head, swinging it down and hitting me in the face and head with an open palm. He did this five or six times—hard—before finally getting off of me.
Disoriented and nursing a sore jaw, I stood up—but before I could collect myself, he grabbed me by my hair and shoved me to my knees, forcing my face into his crotch several times before shoving me to the floor.
Lux said the reason she didn’t come forward sooner is that people — including the police — tend to blame sex workers for putting themselves in harm’s way. She also said she didn’t want to be blacklisted in the industry.
Stoya — who has written for The New York Times, Vice, and Jezebel and is a director with her own production company TRENCHCOATx in addition to starring in adult films — previously tweeted to her fans that she would be “mostly offline” until December 17. She has yet to comment publicly on her tweets or the internet's reaction.
Tech Insider has reached out to Deen for comment and will update if he responds.
Hundreds of porn sites have been targeted by criminals using malicious advertising – commonly known as malvertising – to infect visitors' devices with malware. The latest campaign comes after similar attacks in recent months on a number of popular adult websites, including xHamster, RedTube and PornHub.
Malicious adverts were discovered by the US-based security firm Malwarebytes on what it said were moderately popular porn sites attracting millions of visitors each day. The sites included DrTuber, Nuvid, Eroprofile, IcePorn and Xbabe. The adverts are hosted and served by the adult ad network AdXpansion and do not need to be clicked on to potentially affect a visitor to a site.
"It isn't so much that pornography sites are targeted, so much as the adult advertising networks," Chris Boyd, an analyst at Malwarebytes, told IBTimes UK. "The end result of infected PCs is still the same, but as with most forms of malvertising, the websites themselves tend to have little control over which adverts are served to their visitors.
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"Everyone is reliant on a chain of trust which is easily broken by unscrupulous individuals willing to pollute the stream with rogue adverts. The challenge is to find ways of reducing the threat to those at risk from the bad ads."
Malwarebytes contacted the AdXpansion network to inform them of the malvertising campaign but no response had been given at the time of publication.
Two half-naked women stand beside a vintage, cherry-red Mustang convertible on a remote hill in Calabasas, California. The smaller, dark-haired woman hitches her cowboy boot on the car's hood, while the other, a blonde with bright green eyes, bends to kiss her partner's leg. Things heat up rapidly, but something is off.
Director Holly Randall, an athletic woman in denim cut-offs and a gray V-neck tee, calls cut. She announces that one of the actresses needs a Wet Wipe for a lipstick stains between her legs. The makeup artist dashes over with a touch-up kit. A straight-faced male crew member steps into the frame to adjust the lighting "on the downstairs."
Randall tosses out a few suggestions for the next few minutes of foreplay. Then she calls action, and the kissing and moaning resumes.
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I used to think all you needed to make a porn was a bed and one or more naked people. The shoots took place in grimy basement studios, with mustached men in gold track suits looking on and smiling.
Randall and her crew defy this stereotype, and they're making a steady living doing it.
Their glamorous approach may in fact be the key to how Randall's productions make money, even as the porn industry struggles more than ever to compete with free content on the internet.
"You have to carve out a niche that people are interested in, that people are willing to pay for," Randall says.
In her case it is high-end erotica: Watch any of her films and you'll see models framed in intimate close-up shots with romantic lighting on their faces or other body parts. Scenes are often scripted, and feature elaborate sets and props. The end result could be called a work of art.
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Over the summer, I was invited to spend a day on Randall's set and unravel my perceptions of adult film production. If there's one thing I learned, it's this: Making good porn isn't easy.
***
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A few hours earlier, the entire crew gathered in a white ranch house atop the hill to eat lunch. Randall's assistant, a bubbly twenty-something who says she found the position on Craigslist, arrived with a buffet of falafel, chicken shawarma, pita bread, and salad.
In one corner, the tan blonde actress, Nicole Aniston, sat picking a morsel of Mediterranean food out of her cleavage. Her hair fell in barrel rolls down the front of her white robe, and she laughed swapping stories with the crew. They had spent most of the morning constructing a Gothic-style lair for a Halloween shoot later in the day.
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The mood was hearty. Twistys, a pay-for-play site known for its softer, more glamorous approach to adult content, commissioned Randall to shoot its big Treat of the Year package. The feature celebrates the company's most popular star of 2015. The recipient's photos and movies receive special promotion on the site.
Across the room, Randall hardly paused during the break. She conferenced with the makeup artist on how to style Aniston's hair, suggesting they use a bandana for the "Thelma & Louise" inspired scene. Then she chatted with the wardrobe stylist, running her hands and eyes over denim booty-shorts and a fringe jacket.
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Of course, those clothes would come off and the hair would likely come undone in minutes. But Randall's attention to detail and high production quality are what set her videos apart — and keep her in business.
***
Today, there up to five million adult content sites on the internet, as discussed on a recent episode of "Codebreaker," a new podcast from Marketplace and Tech Insider. But a lot of them struggle to make money, especially since the rise of YouTube-style "tube sites."
Internet porn: Is it evil? Listen to the full episode:
Subscribe for all the Codebreaker episodes. Get the podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app.
PornHub, YouPorn, RedTube, and others (many owned by industry-giant MindGeek, which also happens to own Twistys) profit from slapping ads on the amateur videos users upload themselves, as well as on adult clips syndicated or occasionally pirated from the web. Advertising now makes up a whopping 44% of revenue in the $3 billion US porn industry, according to market researcher IBISWorld. Subscription-based sites' contribution has fallen to 18% of revenue.
Los Angeles County, an area that at least used to be called Porn Valley because so many adult films were shot there, has been hit particularly hard. A 2012 county law requiring performers to wear condoms contributed to a 90% plunge in production permits the following year.
Like the music world at the dawn of Napster, the industry has had to adapt.
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"Gone are the days when you could just build a website, put up whatever, and make money," Randall later tells me over the phone, explaining that her original material will inevitably by torrented and made available online for free.
"You have to be really competitive, and you have to be good at what you do," she says.
Fortunately, Randall is both. She comes from a family of pornographers: Her mother, Suze, came to the US in the '70s to become the first female staff photographer at Playboy, and later, Hustler. Randall joined the business as a college student, helping to run her parents' website, and now leads one of the most illustrious careers in the industry. Her clients include Playboy Plus, Adult DVD Empire, and Twistys.
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She explains that when internet porn first exploded in the early 2000s, its availability was coupled with the arrival of a consumer, professional-grade hand camera. Anyone could buy an affordable video recorder, shoot decent quality content, and share it to a platform that transcended distribution laws. She calls it "a perfect storm."
"You saw the beginning of this really hard-core, 'Gonzo' type material, where it was almost like the porn Olympics," Randall laughs. She rattles off examples of sodomy feats that are far too lewd to name here.
Now, poor quality content along with pirated videos make up the majority of online porn.
Fortunately for Randall and the crew she hires, some consumers are getting bored of that old smut.
***
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My household coughs up close to $40 a month for access to Netflix, HBO Now, Hulu Plus, and Amazon Prime. Why? Because we choose to pay a premium for spectacular content. Of course, we still know many people who often torrent episodes of their favorite shows, or movies that have yet to hit streaming sites. Many folks do both.
The same breakdown applies to porn. With so much outdated, low-grade content circulating the internet, consumers are tired of throwing their weight into searching for something new they know they'll enjoy, Randall says.
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Some of those porno-connoisseurs will shell out subscription fees for glamorous, well-lit, HD videos, because they appreciate their quality. Pay sites like Twistys, X-art, 21Naturals, and Girlsway exist to cater to that audience.
"There has been a movement toward more high-end, cinematic porn ... in the last few years," Randall says. "It's the pendulum swinging in the opposite way."
Magali Rheault, pay site director of adult media conglomerate Gamma Entertainment, tells us high-end, scripted videos have emerged as the most popular content genre in the last few years. The company manages several brands specializing in "stunning erotica" and "passionate sex."
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Some of Gamma's partner studios are investing more in production in order to tap into this niche, often called erotica, according to Rheault. The videos feature more light and overexposed scenes, slower pacing, and scripted scenarios. Directors look to hire actors, not just people capable of having sex on-screen.
"The trick is to find the sweet spot that people are willing to pay, a bit like [what] Netflix does," Rheault says. "Basically, our motto is, 'Delivering Porn That People Want To Pay For.'"
It's a mission she shares with Randall.
***
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During my day on set of an adult film shoot, I saw this shift in action. I expected the director to bang the clapboard, and the actresses to lunge at each other like cats in heat. Randall would shoot one long take, to completion.
Instead, every moment of human intimacy was meticulously crafted. The crew seemed to speak a second language made up entirely of euphemisms.
"Let me check the downtown" or "downstairs" preceded a lighting technician sliding up next to an actress and holding a light meter — a remote control-shaped gadget used to determine proper camera exposure — to her private parts, which had to be well lit.
If Randall asked an actress to "give me a spread," the performer would slip one hand south to spread her vagina open. "Give me a search" implied a little more digging.
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Not only did their code dictate what happened next but also it stripped the experience of any intimacy for the people watching and partaking in real-time. It looked like work, not pleasure.
"One of the most common questions I get is, 'Do you get turned on while you're shooting porn scenes?'" Randall says. "When I look at what I'm shooting, it's not people having sex. It's almost like this geometric equation. [I'm thinking] What are the angles like? What's the lighting like? How is the wardrobe falling off?
"It's all these tiny, meticulous details that I look at, as opposed to people actually having sex in front of me."
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Later in the day, the crew and I gathered around an outdoor, Gothic-style set fit for a vampire. Two of the designers worked most of the morning preparing it, hanging vintage lanterns and swaths of red fabric on the trees. A fog machine blew puffs of white off the hillside. The technicians joked about what Randall's neighbors must think.
Then a pint-sized, brunette actress tiptoed her way to set in a red, faux leather bodysuit, à la Britney Spears in the "Oops!... I Did It Again" music video. Her black lipstick matched the rims around her eyelids.
Randall took position on the ground, her camera in hand and her pit bull mix Khaleesi sitting beside her. She instructed the actress on how to pose, and waited for the fog to clear.
An India-based restaurant search service has literally put food and porn together mimicking the popular internet epithet "food porn." Zomato has gone a step further in aiming to tap the potential of porn sites in India by advertising food on them.
Enticing as it may sound, the New Delhi-based firm with global ambitions, has said it is hoping to serve the "obviously hungry" customers. Firmly pinning hopes on the growing number of Indians watching porn on their desktops and smartphones, Zomato said the initial response to the advertisements has been positive, if not overwhelming.
Speaking to IBTimes UK, Pramod Rao, senior vice-president of growth at Zomato, said: "Based on the first week of the campaign, we're seeing great traction in terms of click-throughs, app installs, and orders originating from these ads. However, the first week has been more of a test and we'll now be optimizing a few things for the remainder of the campaign based on what we've learned."
The ads, which Zomato claims would beat other advertisements on adult sites, were placed between 11pm and 4am, during which the traffic to the sites is thought to be at the maximum. The food-ordering service, which has already set up offices in 23 countries and is aiming for more, said residents of New Delhi clicked on the advertisements more than any other city. This was followed by the south Indian city of Bangalore.
When asked whether it would negatively impact their brand name as Indians are often seen as conservative, Rao said: "I don't think it'll affect our brand name negatively."
Rao said the idea of advertising on porn sites came up during a meeting when someone mentioned: "'Hey we should try advertising on porn sites', and then justified it with 'look, people watch porn, and people get hungry, so stop judging me.'"
The unconventional campaign has come at a time when the company is struggling to make profit in a vibrant and crowded Indian market. Zomato fired about 300 staff, or 10% of the workforce, in October this year.
It also attracted a lot of flak over a campaign during the recent Chennai floods in which Zomato promised to contribute one meal towards relief measures for every meal ordered by a customer. Critics pointed out Zomato was trying to capitalise on the disaster by marketing themselves but the company said it was a genuine charity measure.
